Tanquary Vista

27″ × 62″, oil on linen (2013) Tanquary Fiord, Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada

From the INTO THE ARCTIC Project

Eight hundred kilometres shy of the North Pole is the austere Ellesmere Island. Here the enormity of the land, along with the clean air and lack of trees, makes judging distance difficult. What one expects to be an hour-long hike often turns into a half-day journey. After one such exhausting trek – which included multiple icy river crossings and uphill climbs – I found the most spacious view I’d ever seen from land, stretching beyond Tanquary Fiord and far into the distant mountains.